So, does this game require a "squad" to play, or is there stuff you can do by yourself? Being generally awful at shooters like this, mandatory grouping with pretty much kills a game for me, since I'll immediately hamstring anyone who gets stuck with me.

However, I did manage to have some fun with Destiny because there was a story and objectives that I could mostly run around and do solo. There were usually other people also running around and we would sometimes be shooting at the same thing, but it didn't necessarily require me to group with people in order to progress.

Also, if I understand it correctly, I can pay the $15 for an Origin Premium sub and play it for a month without paying $60 for the full game, correct?

The game really pushes squads but the storyline quests can all be done solo by setting your expedition to private. And yes, a premium sub lets you play the whole thing.

You can't do Freeplay solo but I've been doing all the missions solo. I don't have a SSD so I hit the infinite loading bug whenever I try to play with a group (I noticed most people who don't experience the bug are on SSD so I think there's some timeout that's occurring). Anyway most of the time that I try to play with a group the mission loads 95% and then stops so I have to Alt+F4. When I restart the game then it asks if I want to rejoin and then it works. Hopefully they fix that soon...but it never happens when I play missions in private mode so that's another reason I play solo

I played a few hours last night and had a good time. I did 3 or 4 missions and one free play session. All pickup groups went well, although missions were easy enough not to require a ton of coordination. Free play had tougher mobs and I died a few times....not a bad thing. I spent some team reading up on the lore and I am getting a Hellgate vibe from the setting and way the game is structured. Zero crashes or issues, thus. Games runs great on mediumish settings.

Mines not really a SSD. It has a 8 GB flash/ssd in it that prioritizes what uses it based on frequency of usage. For about $25 more I got an avg 25% increase in game load time using it. Decent bang for your buck as a true SSD would have been at least twice as much with half the storage. I do have 125GB free on my boot drive and could move it over but I haven't seen the bug you mentioned yet.

So, does this game require a "squad" to play, or is there stuff you can do by yourself? Being generally awful at shooters like this, mandatory grouping with pretty much kills a game for me, since I'll immediately hamstring anyone who gets stuck with me.

However, I did manage to have some fun with Destiny because there was a story and objectives that I could mostly run around and do solo. There were usually other people also running around and we would sometimes be shooting at the same thing, but it didn't necessarily require me to group with people in order to progress.

Also, if I understand it correctly, I can pay the $15 for an Origin Premium sub and play it for a month without paying $60 for the full game, correct?

You sound like me, right down to the plan to pay EA far less than full price for this. Once I get tired of the new Civ expansion, at least: no sense starting the clock on a subscription service that I only intend to keep for a month before I'm actually ready to play the game!

The Day One patch came out today and it made a huge difference for me. Load times are still long (for me on my HDD) but better than before, but I can actually load into Freeplay without issue. Waypoint markers seem to be consistently working and I can see the things attacking me rather than waiting 30s for them to appear on my screen. Performance is much improved overall, so that's a good sign (I hope) of things to come.

Stop it. Stop having fun. And, most importantly, stop making me question my commitment to avoid giving EA any money for this until at least a week after the actual release date, when hopefully the server populations will have stabilized a bit and the worst of the bugs will have been hotfixed into oblivion.

I mean, I have a fair bit of free time this weekend, and I was planning to spend that playing an unhealthy amount of Civ 6. You all are making me think I should play an unhealthy amount of Anthem instead. Shame on you.

Origin Access is good. My wife got me the lower cost tier in like Oct or Nov. I got it for the addons to Dragon Age Inquisition but those turned out to be the higher tier payment area instead. So I played and finished Andromeda. We dropped it in Dec before she passed away. I myself may never go back or I might. I have no idea. But I think it was worth it for what I paid and what I played.

The premium pass is one of the best deals in gaming imo. I bought a years worth for $99 right when Madden came out figuring I would be buying that and BF 5 when it came out. Would have cost me more to buy the "base" game of both of those. For $99 I got the gold/deluxe/premium/legendary additions with all DLC, future DLC and other silly goodies. I got all the DLC for BF 1 as well Plus a nice catalog of games, most of which i did have but still. Bonus points for mas my daughter just got her first laptop and she can log in and play on that. She has instant access to a bunch of good kids stuff (sims, Spore, etc. etc.). Anthem plus anything else coming the next 6 months is just delicious icing.

I have this plus the MS Game pass for the Xbox which is also a fantastic deal as I haven't had a console since early PS3 so insta backlog! It's like renting games at Blockbuster except no late fees .

On topic: I really like Anthem but I suspect I might be less enamored if I had paid $60 out the gate for it. I'm not sure there's $60 worth of content right now but I do believe they will add enough free updates to make it worth it. The "subscription" model outlined above makes way more sense for games like this to me then paying full admission up front.

The premium pass is one of the best deals in gaming imo. I bought a years worth for $99 right when Madden came out figuring I would be buying that and BF 5 when it came out. Would have cost me more to buy the "base" game of both of those. For $99 I got the gold/deluxe/premium/legendary additions with all DLC, future DLC and other silly goodies. I got all the DLC for BF 1 as well Plus a nice catalog of games, most of which i did have but still. Bonus points for mas my daughter just got her first laptop and she can log in and play on that. She has instant access to a bunch of good kids stuff (sims, Spore, etc. etc.). Anthem plus anything else coming the next 6 months is just delicious icing.

That's exactly what I did. I figured 3 games I wanted that was going to come out in the year was worth the $$$. Basically a free game.

I got through the first section, up until the point where I could choose my face and access the city. The game is fun, but the controls are horrible. First thing, if you haven't, go into the in-game mouse settings. There are a set of options under the actual sensitivity labeled '* mouse precision', '* mouse response', and '* auto center'. Set them all to zero. Despite all of that, the game still has forced negative acceleration in third-person mode. That generally means that they aren't capturing the mouse input directly. They're looking for control stick input from a controller, and use the mouse input to simulate a controller. What it means in-game is that the faster you physically move your mouse, the slower the crosshair in-game moves. It's a setting designed to make thumbsticks more precise. Also, lots of people who use very low DPI in their mouse settings are unable to turn at all - apparently there's a 'dead zone' for mouse input, another feature of simulated controller input. It's an indicator of a lazy port that just simulates controller input instead of bothering to program actual keyboard/mouse input.

Saw about 12 reviews out...glanced at about 4...middling scores.....OK, 55/100, house is not a home...that kinda stuff.

I think it's going to fall into 'flawed but fun' category. If you want to find things to complain about, you'll be able to. If you want to have a lot of fun with the game with the parts that are done well, you'll be able to.

I had a couple of hours of downtime today during which I couldn't game, and I went and read/watched a bunch of reviews. I got the game for free as part of a promotion, and wanted to see whether I should jump in now, or wait for a few patches. While they differed here and there, there were certain things that all the reviewers seemed to agree on:

Pros:
~Combat itself is well done and lots of fun
~The sound is fantastic
~The visuals are great
~Performance is good
~Great use of verticality

Cons:
~Very, very repetitive
~Very buggy
~Some odd design decisions (tethering in missions forcing loads if you get more than a few yards from the party and causing loss of loot, inability to swap gear on the fly, a loot system that takes away from the sense of reward, lots of unexplained attributes and statistics, not enough relevant information on abilities and gear to make informed decisions, everything stuck behind multiple long load screens.)

The most common consensus was that: 1, the game is fun, but gets old really, really fast when you start doing missions that are all short and identical, and 2, the game is unfinished and desperately needs a few patches. Also brought up a few times was that some of the deepest issues (like repetitiveness) may not be patchable.

A friend of mine and I picked this up and are enjoying it so far. Loading times all seem reasonable, no noticeable bugs so far, sometimes the conversations that open up after missions get a little excessive, but most of those can be skipped or don't take too long.

Combat is a lot of fun, different suits play very differently, drops and upgrades are plentiful and interesting.

A friend of mine and I picked this up and are enjoying it so far. Loading times all seem reasonable, no noticeable bugs so far, sometimes the conversations that open up after missions get a little excessive, but most of those can be skipped or don't take too long.

Combat is a lot of fun, different suits play very differently, drops and upgrades are plentiful and interesting.

Thumbs up from me.

No game of this nature sucks as a first impression. Well, none worth talking about anyway. Let us know how things are in a week, 2 weeks, a month. If you're the kind of gamer who only spends 10-15 hours in any one game, then this is not a genre that can survive on only 10-15 hours of decent game play. It needs hundreds of hours of fun. I have no idea if does/doesn't have it, only that I wouldn't expect anything but glowing reviews after the first few days of play, otherwise it's already a failure. What makes games in this genre a success are whether people are still playing it after 40+, 100+ hours of play.

To be clear, the loading times aren't the major complaint reviewers have. The issue is the frequency of loading. One reviewer recorded his play, and determined that for a mission that involved four minutes of playtime, there were loading screens that took five minutes. None of the screens were particularly long, there were just vast numbers of them.

Well, before the patch last Thursday it was both. If you weren't on SSD, then the loading times were so long it led to the infinite loading bug with Freeplay. Since the patch I'm not even noticing the multiple loads as being an issue - honestly haven't really had it happen much

I really didn't follow much of the hype or non-hype with Anthem, so it was kind of a nice surprise for me. It seemed like it was taking a lot of bad press and negativity for whatever reason, but that's rarely stopped me before lol.

I'll just start with saying this is by far the best experience I've had with a game of this genre, going all the way back to the "classics" that seem to be universally adored (Halo, Destiny, etc). I am NOT saying this is the best game, but it's my personal favorite. Why? Because it is really, really forgiving to the horribleness that is me. In spite of all the stupid things I do, it still leaves me feeling like a winner for the most part and offers options without being condescending. More importantly it hasn't left me with the feeling like I have no chance to progress further no matter what I do. Oh yeah, and no matter how bad I am at the flying aspect, it is so freaking cool.

Most normal players will never notice these subtleties, because it takes a lot to suck as bad as I do. More often than not I'll take off and fly straight into a wall. It would be pretty funny if it wasn't so pathetic. But awesomely enough, even if I'm in a group with strangers, it's no big deal because after a bit of dilly dallying it will automatically jump me to their position. This solves one of the biggest problems I have in terms of keeping up with other players. The alternative is to play a Private (solo) instance and play at my own pace on Easy difficulty. I like this option too, as there's much less pressure and I can plod along as slow as I'd like and fly into as many trees as I want. The interface to this is a bit whack but I'm thankful for the variety of options. And somehow even when I've got myself way in too deep, I was actually able to make it through. I entered a Stronghold when the option opened up ( I was level 6), and it was clearly way too much for me too handle. But the other players dragged me along to the end, I really don't know why. I think I died like 10 times but it was such a great feeling finishing the boss. The other players were levels 8-23, so I did realize it wasn't entirely my fault I kept dying.

I like the Bioware-esque touches in terms of the storyline and characters, they all seem just a tad more interesting than other similar games. But not so much that they deter you from staying focused on more missions. There's definitely some quirkiness overall, and similar to Mass Effect I wonder how much value there is in making you walk back and forth so often. That's just a minor deterrent though.

I've always wanted to be able to spend more time in one of these games, but I've always come across some inane hurdle that was just too frustrating me to get past. I'm hoping I don't run into a similar wall here, but thus far I'm pretty happy.

Thanks for that. I'm a little adrift right now and was considering splurging on an impulse buy on this.

I'll look elsewhere.

Damn my fool self for not checking with OO first. Bc that's exactly what I did.

As Blackhawk stated very well it's not a bad game but it is definitely repetitive. Also has anyone mentioned it's repetitive yet?
The flying is definitely fun though. Reminds me of playing City of Heroes back in the day. And dropping in for a well placed melee shot from flight is pretty cool too. Just wish there was a little more depth to the game

OR
cry in a corner that the world has come to a point where you have to pay for imaginary shit.

I dunno...it doesn't feel anymore repetitive to me than Destiny. "It looks like the Fallen are bringing in their arms supplies....again" I just assumed that's the nature of the beast with these types of games. The question becomes how much new content will they be rolling out and how frequently. Their current plans sounds promising

Ritt, do you get a strong Hellgate:London vibe like me? Setting, gameplay, and general vibe mirror it a lot imo. Centralized "safe" hub filled with quirky English accented NPC's. Everything outside of the safe zone is prone to "Demons" spawning out of portals that must be killed. Varied classes withe guns, melee and magic being options. It's lacking the excellent loot systems in regards to guns but very similar in a lot of other respects.

I am still having a good time and would highly recommend the game to others of the same mind set. Up to almost level 11 playing it at leisurely pace. I find the NPC writing, voice acting and animation to all be some of the best I have ever experienced. I have LOL for real quite a few times and was howling last night after a conversation about "sexy Violence" and "Sexy Danger" with one of the NPC's. It is a wide ranging cast of characters that have completely different personalities and I enjoy the banter with all of them. It really brings nothing to the game for most folks and is probably wasted on %75 of the payer base who is trying to blitzkrieg through the content. Screw them for a change, I'll enjoy taking my time and soaking up the atmosphere.

Ritt, do you get a strong Hellgate:London vibe like me? Setting, gameplay, and general vibe mirror it a lot imo. Centralized "safe" hub filled with quirky English accented NPC's. Everything outside of the safe zone is prone to "Demons" spawning out of portals that must be killed. Varied classes withe guns, melee and magic being options. It's lacking the excellent loot systems in regards to guns but very similar in a lot of other respects.

Yes! It's the closest thing I can recall to HGL in a long time. I had forgot to mention that the loot in the game is also more fun than what I had originally expected or assumed. At least for the Storm javelin, I didn't realize that different mods would allow different effects and bonuses, giving much more customization. Presumably added layers of rarity will make them even more fun.

Ritt, do you get a strong Hellgate:London vibe like me? Setting, gameplay, and general vibe mirror it a lot imo. Centralized "safe" hub filled with quirky English accented NPC's. Everything outside of the safe zone is prone to "Demons" spawning out of portals that must be killed. Varied classes withe guns, melee and magic being options. It's lacking the excellent loot systems in regards to guns but very similar in a lot of other respects.

Yes! It's the closest thing I can recall to HGL in a long time. I had forgot to mention that the loot in the game is also more fun than what I had originally expected or assumed. At least for the Storm javelin, I didn't realize that different mods would allow different effects and bonuses, giving much more customization. Presumably added layers of rarity will make them even more fun.

Ha, glad I wasn't the only one! It's HGL mixed with Tribes!

You are correct. I find the gun loot extremely lacking in variety and depth but understand that most of the other loot acts like Abilities/Skills in other games. That part surprised me too as I was expecting a typical progression tree. After hitting level 11 I am now understanding the need for different preset builds for each Javelin.

What, do you hate this game? Are you trying to discourage people from playing?!?!

Ritt and myself are both unabashedly big HGL fans.

LMAO yeah I forgot we might be the only ones. I honestly still love and miss HGL. I reinstalled it recently and didn't get far, but still had warm fuzzies for it. I know I've probably said this many times but in my mind, it's still the only 3D/FPS game that comes close to capturing the Diablo feel, particularly when it comes to customization and loot. It's actually the only FPS style game I have ever played through completely (and beyond).

The next 90 days until May make up Anthem‘s first “Act” named Echoes of Reality, which is the end-game content for players who have already finished the campaign missions. BioWare said that there will be recurring updates, including quality of life fixes and improvements; weekly Alliance Coin rewards; daily, weekly, and monthly challenges; and new cosmetics through Prospero Store refreshes.

February will see the addition of three new Freeplay events, with four more to be introduced in March alongside Legendary missions, new cosmetics, and new item rewards. Anthem accelerates in April, with the arrival of guilds, a Mastery system for character progression, and a new Stronghold named The Sunken, in addition to seven new Freeplay events and more Legendary missions.

May will then bring something called the Cataclysm to Anthem, which entails a new Freeplay event, new missions, and new items. Nothing else was revealed about the event, though BioWare will likely talk more about it as the weeks progress.

A significant percentage of the items in the 90-day road map are marked “Cortex Locked,” which basically means that they are hidden to prevent spoilers on the game’s lore. There are also placeholders for the unnamed Act 2 and Act 3.